


The Gallows Tree

by Suzie_Shooter



Series: Midsomer Musketeers [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Convalescence, M/M, Murder Mystery, Pre-slash (mostly), References to Addiction, Self-Doubt, Sleeping Pills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 18:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12348414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_Shooter/pseuds/Suzie_Shooter
Summary: A burnt-out solicitor recovering from a breakdown, Athos hopes the pretty little village he's moved to will be just what he needs. But was the body he saw at the end of the garden real or a figment of his medicated imagination? Is his house really haunted? The Reverend d'Herblay thinks he's seeing things, but can he convince Detective Inspector Porthos du Vallon that murder has been done?(Basically I just wanted to write The Musketeers does Midsomer Murders...)





	1. Chapter 1

Athos drove slowly into the village, glancing at the chocolate-box cottages he was passing with little recognition. He’d been here before to look over the house, but it had been in a medicated haze and his recollections were blurry.

To the right was a little country church, and movement caught his eye as a group of people spilled out of the door. His first thought was a winter wedding, but then it registered that everyone was in black. A funeral then.

He shuddered. Thoughts of death were exactly what he didn’t need right now, and it somehow felt like a bad omen.

Athos put his foot down, causing an elderly man walking a Jack Russell to step hastily back into the verge and glare at him as he passed. Athos barely noticed, intent only on getting away from the morbid scene behind him.

He found the cottage with little trouble, recognising it more from the estate agent’s particulars than his own brief visit a couple of months previously. He’d left it up to his assistant to furnish, his own interest in it beginning and ending with the fact it represented an escape from the city. Sanctuary, in the peace of the countryside. He hoped.

Getting out of the car, Athos noticed for the first time that there was a light on inside and his heart sank. He didn’t want to face anyone right now, didn’t want to make small talk with nosy villagers. He knew it couldn't be Constance in there, had spoken to her briefly before leaving that morning and knew she was still in London.

He let himself in and stood cautiously in the hallway, listening. The house felt empty, but there was light bleeding out from at least two doorways.

“Hello?” Athos called out, but there was no reply and he relaxed a little. Pushing open the nearest door he found it opened onto a cosy sitting room. It had been furnished in the style of an old fashioned gentleman’s club, all leather armchairs and polished wood and bookshelves. It was a world away from the modern décor of Athos’ apartment in the city, but it suited the house and he conceded his own furniture would have looked out of place here.

Constance had worked hard to make it feel homely for him, and he felt a pang of guilt. She was a trained para-legal, but due to circumstances he'd had no cases for her to work on recently. Temporarily at a loose end, she’d been eager enough to take on a project like this, and had promised him repeatedly that she didn’t mind.

He looked out of the front window. Immaculate houses all down the road, each in their own secluded plot behind carefully maintained hedges and fences. Glimpses of expensive cars in driveways. His own Mercedes fit in perfectly. This was commuter country, within easy reach of the City if you left at an appropriately painful time of the morning.

Outside a big black car slid noiselessly past, followed by a stream of others and Athos realised it must be the funeral party returning from the graveside. He pulled the curtain across sharply to block out the view, wincing at the protesting screech of metal rings on the pole.

Wandering back into the hall Athos headed towards the back of the house. The second door opened onto the kitchen-diner, and there was a savoury smell filling the room that was almost enough to make him feel hungry for once.

Athos picked up a note left on the counter and opened the envelope.

_Have arranged for Mrs Evans from the village to come in and make sure the place is warmed and aired, and to leave you some supper. She’s happy to come in and clean for you three times a week if you want her to, but I asked her to leave it a couple of days before calling. Told her to put the key back through the letterbox when she was done, so you don’t have to worry about anyone walking in on you. Hope everything’s okay, let me know if you need anything. Constance._

Athos walked back to the front door and after a moment located the key lying beside the doormat. There was a wooden bowl on a sideboard and he dropped it in, feeling an irrational spike of irritation. He appreciated all the effort Constance had gone to, but it made him feel like he was being managed. Looked after. Like he was ill.

He was ill. Athos looked at his reflection in the hall mirror and sighed. He didn’t look it, other than the shadows under his eyes. You’d hardly know.

Athos went back to the kitchen and found another note beside the stove, this one written in a rounder, heavier hand.

 _Chicken casserole keeping warm in the oven, bread in the bread bin, milk and butter in the fridge. Village shop is open every day (mornings only on Sundays) or just let me know if I can bring you any shopping. Patricia Evans._ It ended with a local phone number, and he sighed.

Everyone was being very thoughtful. It was the sort of thing one said at a funeral, wasn’t it? _You’ve all been very kind._ His thoughts slipped unwillingly back to the burial he’d passed, and wondered who’d died. It had been a large gathering. Someone well liked? Or just important?

It didn’t take him long to explore the rest of the house. Upstairs were two small bedrooms, a double and a single, and a bathroom. There was a second lavatory crammed in under the stairs on the ground floor, and a small utility room bolted on at the back, and that was it. In terms of overall floorspace it was probably bigger than the flat he’d come from, but the dark beams and leaded windows made it feel smaller. Athos decided on balance that he liked it. It felt like a protective shell that he could safely hide in from the rest of the world.

Coming back down the stairs, Athos paused for a second as he caught the unmistakeable smell of woodsmoke. Curious, he went a couple of steps back up, sniffing, but the scent had already evaporated. There was no open hearth in the cottage any more, he knew that, some previous owner having had a gas fire put in decades ago. Strange that a smell should linger so long, but maybe hundreds of years of log fires had permeated the fabric of the place. Although if that was the case, surely he should be able to still smell it?

Realising the way he was still sniffing the air around him made him look faintly ridiculous, Athos shrugged and went down the rest of the stairs at a trot, only to draw up sharply as he caught sight of a figure standing in the doorway to the sitting room.

“Who’s there?” Alarmed at finding he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought, Athos froze, one hand gripping the newel post so hard his knuckles turned white. His throat closed up in panic, and he had to fight to calm himself, taking slow breaths. 

There’d been no response to his stammered demand, and he stared at the doorway in confused apprehension. What had he seen? A shadow, moving into the room, that was all. Could he have been mistaken?

One unwilling step at a time, Athos forced himself to walk into the room and he wasn’t sure if it was a relief or not to find it empty. 

“Trick of the light,” he muttered to himself. “That’s all.” Must have just been light reflecting from a car windscreen or something. He retreated to the kitchen, closed the door firmly behind him and put the radio on to break the suddenly oppressive silence.

He was halfway through a plateful of the casserole when he remembered he’d closed the curtains in the front room, and it couldn’t have been a reflection from anything.

\--

The next morning Athos slept late, feeling gluey and numb when he finally struggled awake. Uneasy in a strange bedroom, he’d needed a double dose of sleeping pills before he could finally pass out, and this morning he was paying the price for it. 

Stumbling into the bathroom he realised he could smell woodsmoke again, and frowned. Pacing back and forth he occasionally caught another whiff, but never in quite the same place and eventually he gave up and went to stand blankly under the shower. What did it matter if the old place reeked a bit? It wasn’t an unpleasant smell. He just didn’t like things that came and went like that. There’d been a period when he couldn’t trust his own senses, and it was important to him now to know he was right in his own mind. 

It occurred to him he could ask Constance to drive down and ask her if she could smell it too, except even putting the question to her would probably be enough to make her think he should still be seeing a psychiatrist. Maybe he should.

Athos physically shook his head, shaking off the thought and finally making himself get out of the shower that was by now running cold. He was fine. He’d been signed off. _I’m sane_ , he thought to himself. _And I’ve got the piece of paper to prove it._ He even managed to raise a smile at that, and as he towelled off and got dressed he found a spark of determination that this was going to be a fresh start, a new day.

Downstairs he made himself a mug of tea and opened the kitchen window, breathing in the fresh air with pleasure. There was a narrow garden at the back of the house that ran up to the edge of what the estate agent’s particulars had optimistically called a wood, but was in fact a forestry plantation. Rows of dark pines stretched back in military formation, but this morning the sun was shining down through the branches and even the distant cawing of unseen crows seemed more cheerful than sinister.

Feeling a little more refreshed, Athos carried his tea into the front room only to almost drop it when he thought there was someone standing in the window. A second glance told him no, it was just a trick of the light, sunbeams falling through the leaded panes combined with the way the curtain was pushed back.

Athos set down his mug, shaking tea off his knuckles and rubbing his hand where the hot liquid had splashed him. He lowered himself into a chair, heart hammering and feeling weak at the knees. Had he actually come in here and opened the curtains when he’d first come downstairs? He thought so, but suddenly he couldn’t remember it clearly enough to be sure. 

He put his head in his hands, concentrating on just breathing until he felt stronger. The tea revived him a little more, and Athos finally relaxed enough to settle back in the chair and survey the room. There was nothing threatening about it, no shadowy presences, no lingering feeling of dread – at least no more than usual. 

“No such thing as ghosts,” Athos said out loud, just to make sure any ghosts in the vicinity knew his position on the matter. He wasn’t entirely sure the alternative was any better, but if he was hallucinating he was going to put it down to tiredness rather than anything more insidious. Moving house was stressful, right? Even if your assistant had done it all for you. 

He’d been embarrassed to discover that Constance had actually unpacked and put away all his clothes; he hadn’t meant her to go that far but apparently hadn’t been in a fit state to issue sufficiently specific instructions. At least that was a further incentive to pull himself together he thought with a grim smile. See what happens when you let things slide? Other people start organising your pants drawer.

\--

Sleep still came reluctantly, and then only with chemical encouragement. For the first few days Athos didn’t leave the house at all, other than to venture briefly into the back garden. He was glad to find there were high-ish walls to either side which meant it wasn’t overlooked by his neighbours, and he made vague plans to buy a garden table and chairs. Not that he could think of anyone who might sit out here with him, but he assumed it was the sort of thing that came in a set.

Athos gradually settled into the house, becoming more accustomed to its sounds and shadows, and figuring out where Constance had put everything. In most cases he immediately put it somewhere else – not that any of it had been badly organised, but it made him feel more in control of things.

What finally drove him outside was the advent of his new cleaner. The chime of the doorbell made him freeze in sudden panic until he remembered she was due, and he consequently opened the door with only mild trepidation.

Athos had formed a certain mental picture of Mrs Patricia Evans as being a rounded, rosy-cheeked old matron with a tendency to gossip and a liking for floral prints. It therefore came as something of a surprise to discover that she was in fact a five foot Bangladeshi woman in jeans. She was, to be fair, sporting a floral tabard, albeit accessorised with the kind of utility belt that would put a steeplejack to shame.

To his relief she showed little interest in prying into his circumstances, merely establishing briskly what he wanted her to do and informing him what the going rate was. Athos asked her to come in once a week, paid her for two months in advance, and thankfully made his escape. 

It was ridiculous, he thought to himself as he wandered aimlessly down the road. Not so long ago he’d been used to presenting high-profile criminal cases in front of a packed courtroom, but now he was finding even the simplest interactions were giving him hot and cold flushes. Objectively, he knew increased anxiety could be a side effect of the pills he was taking, but not taking them meant not sleeping, and not sleeping – well that had been a contributing factor to his little spell under supervision, hadn’t it.

He made a slow loop through the heart of the village, sussing out the shop and avoiding the group of local inhabitants clustered outside it, conscious of their stares. He moved back uphill and found himself skirting the churchyard wall. 

Athos studied the board by the gate. Various dog-eared notices, one for a monthly interfaith group held in the village hall. Gold lettering that looked relatively fresh across the top of the board picked out _Priest in Charge, Rev. Aramis d’Herblay._ Athos wondered how many parishes the poor sod had to cover. A village this size, mostly made up of incomers wasn’t likely to field a huge congregation, although this pulled his thoughts irresistibly back to the funeral he’d witnessed. That had been a pretty big crowd. He was betting the majority had never set foot in the church before that day though. Just the way things were these days.

Athos found he’d wandered up the path towards the church itself. He wasn’t sure if it was a desire for sanctuary, curiosity or simply because he had nothing else to do, but he tried the handle and finding the door open, stepped into the cool interior.

The church seemed empty and he wandered slowly down the nave, footsteps echoing on the stone floor. He tried not to think about the fact that he was walking over the ranks of the dead, then hesitated mid-step. Maybe coming in here had been a mistake. Was he imagining the faint whispering in the background?

“Can I help you?”

Athos jumped, turning sharply in alarm. To his relief he found himself confronting a flesh-and-blood man in a dog collar, who looked just as startled by his reaction.

“I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump.” 

Athos took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming. I thought I was alone in here.”

“I was in the vestry.” He gave Athos an apologetic smile. “I wouldn’t normally accost a visitor but you seemed a little lost, I thought you might have been looking for me?”

Somewhere in the distance a door slammed and Athos flinched, still on edge. The vicar just tutted. 

“I really need to get that latch seen to. So – sorry, did you want me, or - ?” 

“No, I was just looking,” Athos explained. 

“For God?”

Athos made a face, then realised that might not have been terribly polite. To his relief, the vicar just laughed. 

“Ah. Not God, then. Although you never know, He might be looking for you.”

“Hasn’t done me much good so far,” Athos muttered.

Easy laughter turned to a look of solemn concern. “I’m sorry, you’ve clearly come here in search of solitude and I’m interfering. I’ll leave you in peace.”

“No – no, it’s fine. I don’t know why I came in really. Just curious I suppose.”

“Curiosity is always a good start.” He held out his hand and Athos shook it. “Aramis d’Herblay, at your service.” 

“My name’s Athos. I’ve just moved in to Moonstone Cottage.”

“Oh yes? That’s just down the hill isn’t it? Pretty little place.”

“Actually Reverend, you might be able to help me with something.”

“Oh, please, call me Aramis. I prefer not to stand on ceremony here. The church should be part of the community, not standing apart from it. What did you want to know?”

“Is there any – history, to the cottage, do you know?” Athos asked carefully. “It doesn’t have, say, a particular reputation?”

“What sort of reputation?” Aramis asked, looking surprised. 

Athos sighed inwardly. “For being haunted, maybe?”

“Haunted? Good grief. I can’t say I’ve heard anything along those lines, but then I’ve not actually been in the parish that long, I only took over here at the beginning of the year.” He hesitated. “You’re – having problems?”

“I keep thinking I catch sight of someone,” Athos admitted. “And there’s this odd smell of woodsmoke, that seems to come and go. Not much, I know, but it’s persistent.” 

“Have you considered seeing anyone?”

“What, like an exorcist?” Athos smiled.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a doctor,” Aramis replied carefully, and Athos’ face fell. 

“Excuse me?”

“Well – ghosts – they’re not real you know,” Aramis said kindly, as if speaking to a small child. Athos bristled. 

“You’re a vicar! You believe there’s an invisible man sitting in the sky judging everybody,” he exclaimed. “Aren’t ghosts supposed to be part of your remit?”

“This isn’t the seventeenth century you know,” Aramis said with dignity. “I believe God takes care of all souls, regardless of circumstance. I think you’ll find alleged hauntings are almost always down to some kind of – psychological factor.”

“So you’re saying I’m seeing things?” Athos had meant to sound cross, accusatory, but it came out as a whisper. He’d needed the house to be haunted. He’d wanted it to be local knowledge, common knowledge. Anything other than – this.

“Are you alright?” 

Athos had gone distinctly pale, and was hanging on to the end of a pew for support. 

“I’ve – not been well,” he confessed. “I’m fine, though. Really. And I’m not imagining things.”

“Mmmn.” Aramis looked unconvinced. “Look, why don’t you sit for a while? It can help, I find. Just being in here. Whatever answers you’re looking for, whether you believe in God or not. You can still find peace of mind, if you’re open to it.”

Athos nodded vaguely, sinking down onto the bench. “Maybe you’re right. 

Aramis studied him for a second, then took pity. “Look – I’ll be frank, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I’ll concede that there are people who do. Maybe you should speak to someone who’s lived here longer than I have. They might know more about the history of your place.”

Athos gave him a shrewd look. “You obviously think I’m imagining it – so why the advice?”

Aramis leaned against the pew in front and took a second to answer. “Sometimes you need to prove something to yourself before you can finally accept it. Even if what you’re proving is that you were wrong.”

“And if it turns out I’m right?”

“Then you’ll make a fortune, as the first man to prove their existence.”

The mockery was gentle, and Athos found himself smiling despite himself. “Tell you what, you prove to me the existence of God and I might even come to a service.”

“Other way round,” Aramis laughed. “Come along, and open yourself to the possibility.”

“Perhaps.” The sound of the door opening at the far end made them both look up. A man came in, caught sight of them and strode purposefully down the nave. Dressed head to foot in faded black, Athos noted there was an oddly old-fashioned cut to his clothes and wondered who he was.

“Ah, Reverend, glad I caught you.” 

Athos was fairly sure he caught an expression of faint distaste pass across Aramis’ face, but it had been swiftly replaced by a bland smile by the time the man reached them.

“What can I do for you, Mr Grimaud?”

“His Lordship sends me with both his apologies and a donation. The Marquis regrets that he will not be able to attend your carol service next week, he is taking a trip to warmer climes for the rest of the winter, his bones, you know.”

“That’s a shame. But of course, I understand.”

“With his compliments.” Grimaud withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket and passed it across. Aramis glanced down at the figure on the cheque and his eyebrows went up.

“This is most generous. Please give him my sincere thanks.”

“I will.” Grimaud glanced down at Athos for the first time, then gave a stiff little half-bow to Aramis. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Who was that?” Athos asked once the door was safely closed again behind him. “He was dressed like something out of the last century. Or the one before that, actually.”

“Lucien Grimaud. Works for the Marquis d’Feron, our local bigwig. Sort of combined butler, manservant and go-fer, as far as I can tell. Feron’s very – traditional, in some ways. Less so in others.”

“You don’t like him. Grimaud, I mean.” It wasn’t a question, and Aramis looked startled, then embarrassed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I may not be entirely comfortable in my own head right now, but I don’t miss much when it comes to others.”

Aramis sighed. “There’s just something about him I don’t particularly trust. Nothing I can put my finger on. It’s awkward, really. You feel you should try and see the best in everyone.”

“I find seeing the worst in everyone saves time,” Athos said, getting up from the pew. “Sometimes you’re pleasantly surprised. Mostly you’re not, but at least then you’re not feeling let down.”

“I don’t think you’d make a very good vicar.” Aramis shook his head regretfully, then grinned. “Possibly a decent bishop though.”

\--

The days passed, mostly indistinguishable from each other. Each time Mrs Evans showed up Athos felt somehow taken by surprise to discover that another week had gone by. By now he knew her as Trixie and no longer felt the need to flee the house while she was working, which was just as well as the weather had taken a turn for the worse, cold rain lashing endlessly against the windows.

Christmas came and went, for the most part unremarked and uncelebrated. Constance had offered to come down but Athos forestalled her, taking a train up to London instead to buy her lunch a few days before. 

It wasn’t that he felt he had to pretend he was in a better place than he was, but Athos knew she’d insist on trying to decorate his house in a well-meaning effort to make it more cheerful, and he simply didn’t have the mental energy to spare. 

January brought freezing fog, and for a while the view of the outside world presented an uncomfortably bleak echo of Athos’ inner one. It felt as if the world beyond the windows had ceased to exist, and Athos was utterly alone on earth. 

Alone as far as human companionship went, anyway. Having come to the end of a whole week without experiencing any untoward sounds or scents, Athos found himself spending an uncomfortable evening constantly jumping at shadows, convinced someone was following him silently from room to room while never actually managing to catch a glimpse of anyone.

He eventually escaped early to bed, closing the door firmly behind him and taking three sleeping pills to ensure he wouldn’t be disturbed by anything that might go bump in the night, up to and including an aircraft crash landing in his attic.

\--

Despite sleeping late into the next morning, Athos woke feeling unrefreshed and disgusted with himself. He was supposed to be trying to wean himself off the damn things, not using them as a way to combat childish night terrors. 

He stumbled downstairs still in his pyjamas, hoping that hot tea might revive him and knowing from experience it probably wouldn’t.

Athos pulled back the kitchen curtain and looked out on a world still blurry with fog. Tendrils of it twisted between the dark wet pines at the end of the garden and he blinked away the lingering sedative haze, trying to distinguish between what was real and what was him. As he did so, something he’d been vaguely aware of on the edge of the wood finally came into focus and he froze. 

A dark shape was hanging from one of the trees, a hooded corpse dangling on the end of a rope.

Athos looked sharply away, his strangled intake of breath just managing not to become a scream. His fingers dug into the wood of the counter top as he concentrated on his breathing. 

"It's not real," he told himself, over and over. "It's not real."

When he felt marginally stronger, he forced himself to look up again, expecting to see nothing but the trees. 

The body was still there. 

Athos stared. The initial feeling of cold, paralysing terror slowly dissipated as he finally took in the fact that he wasn’t seeing things, and that something was actually out there.

He unlocked the back door with shaking hands and stumbled down the path and across the lawn in bare feet, heedless of the wet grass soaking his pyjama legs. The fence at the end was low and he climbed over it without difficulty, stopping only to unhook a dead bramble from his dressing gown.

Up close the swinging figure seemed even more ominous, the branch or perhaps the rope creaking quietly. Somewhere in the fog a crow cawed, and Athos shuddered.

He stepped closer, biting his lip. His instinct had been to see if he could help, but there was no struggling, no sign of life. Still – he had to be sure. He reached out, fingers curling back on themselves in reluctance then forcing himself to touch, to take hold of the nearest dangling wrist, to feel for a pulse.

Athos had held out a vain hope it would prove to be a dummy, some kind of hideous prank, but there was no mistaking the fact this was cold flesh under his fingers. There was no pulse that he could find, and looking up at the knot high above in the pine tree Athos conceded there was no way he was getting the body down without help. 

He turned, shivering violently now from more than the cold, and climbed back into the garden.

\--

Just over half an hour later the doorbell went and Athos jumped, frowning irritably at the state of his own nerves. 

"Mr la Fère?" enquired the larger of the two men on the doorstep, looking him over with a dispassionate sort of curiosity.

"Yes, that's right."

"I'm Detective Inspector Porthos Du Vallon, this is Detective Sergeant d'Artagnan," he said, flashing his ID and looking slightly taken aback when Athos actually reached out to examine it.

"Thank you for coming," Athos said, handing it back with a nod. "You've been very quick."

"We were in the neighbourhood," the inspector explained. "Also, when someone says they've found a body we tend not to hang around."

"Right. Yes. Um - this way. I'm afraid you'll have to climb over the fence, but it's rather a long walk round otherwise." Athos lead the way down the hall and into the kitchen, opening the door and stepping back to let them through, relieved they were here to take over.

"Sorry, where are we going?" Porthos asked, and Athos looked up, confused.

"It’s there, at the edge of the wood. Hanging from one of the - " Athos broke off, staring down the garden. The fog had burned off and the day was bright, the trees bathed in sunlight. There was no body.

"It - it was right there," Athos stuttered.

Porthos and d'Artagnan exchanged a look. "Was?" Porthos prompted, allowing an edge of scepticism to creep into his tone. It looked like this was going to be a timewaster after all, which was annoying but on the plus side meant less paperwork than your actual corpse.

"I'm telling you, it was there!" Athos hurried down the path and scrambled over the fence. Porthos rolled his eyes and followed him with a sigh.

"It was here," Athos insisted, locating what he was certain was the right tree and gesticulating helplessly. "Right here."

"It was quite foggy this morning, right?" Porthos hazarded. Athos gave him a look.

"I didn't imagine it, if that's what you think." Athos rubbed his face and took a shuddering breath, looking around in bewilderment as if he might spot the elusive body hanging from a different tree after all.

Porthos studied him for a moment, judged that Athos' obvious distress and confusion was genuine, and modulated his tone accordingly.

"Why don't we go back inside, and you can tell us exactly what happened?" he suggested gently.

Athos nodded defeatedly and lead the way back indoors. Making them all tea, he couldn't help repeatedly staring out of the kitchen window as if the body might suddenly reappear. It was dawning on him that as he'd slept, someone had been dying at the foot of his garden and it was not a comfortable thought.

He explained, as calmly as he could, his discovery of the body, not missing the fact that both the policemen sat up a little when he reiterated the fact he'd actually touched it, not simply seen it from the window.

"And it was definitely a man?" Porthos prompted. "You said you couldn't see his face?"

"There was a bag over his head - a sack," Athos said. "But yes, I would say it was a man's build, and a man's hand and wrist. Older rather than younger, I'd have said." 

"And having established he was dead, what then?"

"I knew I couldn't get him down. I came inside and phoned your lot."

"Immediately?"

Athos hesitated. "It took me a while to gather myself. A few minutes. Then I phoned."

Porthos looked enquiringly at d'Artagnan, who nodded. "We got re-routed about fifteen minutes after it was logged, and got here twenty minutes after that."

"So less than an hour between you reporting it and us getting here," Porthos mused. "And in that time he apparently went walkies. Where were you during that time? You didn't notice anything, hear anything?" 

Athos looked sheepish. "I couldn't bear looking at it," he admitted. "I got dressed, and waited for you in the front room."

"You got dressed?" d'Artagnan echoed, having a brief startling mental image of Athos discovering a corpse in the nude.

"I was in my pyjamas. I'd just got up. I'd - taken a couple of sleeping pills, I slept late. I came down, pulled the curtains, and - there he was." Athos looked from Porthos to d'Artagnan and back again, trying to shake off the unpleasant feeling that they were humouring him. "You do believe me?"

"Thing is - suicides don't tend to wander off again afterwards," Porthos said.

"Then that rather suggests it wasn't a suicide, doesn't it?" Athos snapped, then looked up as something occurred to him. "In fact, it couldn't have been. I knew there was something bothering me. I looked around for a way to get him down and couldn't - he was too far away from the fence and the lowest branches were too high - no way he could have got up there on his own without something to stand on."

"You seem to have it all worked out," d'Artagnan said, and Porthos hastily jumped in before Athos could retort.

"We'll check up on anyone having been reported missing in the area," he promised, getting to his feet and reaching for his coat. 

"Is that it?" Athos asked incredulously, and Porthos sighed. 

"We'll have another look round. May we - ?" he gestured to the back garden and Athos nodded, watching in silence as the two men climbed back over the fence and poked around at the edge of the wood.

"Well it's a bit trampled, but that could have been him," d'Artagnan muttered. "Is he still watching us?" 

Porthos glanced back at the house and quickly away again. "Yeah, from the kitchen window."

"You think he's delusional?"

"I think he believes what he's saying," Porthos said carefully. "Run a background check on him when we get back, can you? Doesn't hurt to know what we're dealing with." He put his hands on his hips and looked up. "Was it this one?"

"Yeah, think so."

"Get up there and have a look, would you?"

D'Artagnan looked indignant. "I am not going up a tree!"

"The alternative's lifting me up there," Porthos pointed out with a grin, and d'Artagnan groaned. 

"Oh alright. Come here then." He put his foot into Porthos' linked fingers and scrabbled his way up the trunk until he could haul himself up to the level of the first branch.

"Anything?"

D'Artagnan grunted non-committally and swung down again. "The bark looks like it's been rubbed away at one point, but that doesn't prove anything. Could have been a child's swing or something."

"Hmmn." Porthos glanced surreptitiously back at the house, where he could make out the shape of Athos still watching at the window. "It does support what he says though."

"If he's not setting the whole thing up for attention."

"You didn't like him much, did you?"

D'Artagnan shrugged. "You see his car out front?" he muttered resentfully. "You know how much this modest little cottage will have set him back in a place like this?"

"I know neither of us could afford to live here," Porthos agreed cheerfully, without resentment. "Come on. We'll take the long way round and see if we trip over any corpses on the way."

They made their way out of the wood and round to the village without incident, where they encountered the vicar pinning a notice about service times to the noticeboard by the church gate.

"Good morning," Porthos called, digging out his warrant card. "Inspector Du Vallon, CID. I wonder if you can help us with a bit of background information on one of your parishioners, Reverend...?"

"D'Herblay. Aramis d'Herblay. I can certainly try," he smiled, looking curiously at them. "I should warn you though, there's a lot of people that don't attend church here, at least not this one. It's mostly the older people and the families that have been here for generations who come. Who were you interested in?" 

"Athos de la Fère?"

Aramis shook his head slowly. "The name’s familiar, but..?"

"Moonstone Cottage?"

"Oh, him! Yes, I know who you mean now. He's not lived here long. Not a churchgoer, but he did come in a while ago to have a look round." 

"You actually spoke to him?" Porthos clarified.

"Oh yes. He wanted to know if I could tell him anything about the history of his cottage. He was rather afraid it was haunted." Aramis smiled, inviting them to laugh, but Porthos and d'Artagnan just looked at each other meaningfully.

"Did I miss something?" Aramis asked, but Porthos shook his head.

"No, thank you, you've been very helpful. Oh, there is one more thing you might be able to help with, do you know if anyone in the village has gone missing lately, or not been seen for a few days perhaps?"

Aramis shook his head. "No, not that I can think of."

"Alright. Thanks again."

"If whoever it was only died this morning they might not have been missed yet," d'Artagnan pointed out in a low voice as they walked back to the car. 

"I thought you reckoned he'd made it all up?" Porthos jibed.

"Benefit of the doubt. But yeah, look, the guy admitted he’d taken sleeping pills, that's got to make you a bit fuzzy, right? And like you said, it was foggy first thing. Maybe he just thought he saw something."

"And touched it?"

"Probably dreamt the whole thing," said d'Artagnan darkly. "I mean, where's the body? You can't have a murder without a body, right?"

"You're probably right," Porthos conceded, as they got back in the car. "Let's check up though, eh?"

\--

Initial enquiries regarding missing persons turned up nothing recent or local, and Porthos was just weighing up whether to arrange for a team to comb the vicinity or not when across the room d'Artagnan hung up the phone and came over.

"You look depressingly smug," Porthos noted. "Go on then, what have you got?"

"Background on our friend la Fère," d'Artagnan told him, pulling a chair over. "He was a lawyer, an expensive one, which explains the pricey motor and house. Criminal defence mostly, one of the top city firms, very in demand."

"You said was?"

D'Artagnan nodded. "Word is he had some kind of breakdown. Ended up doing his nut in the courtroom, screaming at a witness for the prosecution, escorted out by some burly paramedics. Vanished into a private clinic for a good while, came out two months ago."

Porthos sighed. He felt vaguely let down, which was a depressingly common occurrence in this job. "So he probably is delusional."

"Looks like it. Sorry."

Porthos nodded ruefully. "Oh well. Better that than a murderer on the loose I guess."

\--


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the fruitless nature of his initial enquiries, Porthos somehow found himself driving back through the village that evening, deep in thought. There was a light on in Athos' front window, and Porthos pulled up outside, wondering if the best thing would be to get someone else to phone through an impersonal report, explain they wouldn’t be taking things any further. But he felt he owed the man an update, and if he really was seeing things, then maybe it was better he faced that fact.

Opening the door, Athos looked surprised and then almost alarmed when he saw who it was. "Have you found something?" he asked quickly, beckoning him inside. Porthos shook his head.

"Sorry, no. That's what I've come to tell you. We're standing down, there's been no sign of any foul play, and no one's been reported missing."

"But - " Athos stared at him, nonplussed. "But I saw him."

"Yeah." Porthos shifted awkwardly. "About that. I know what you think you saw, but - well there’s nothing there now, is there? And there’s nothing to suggest there ever was. All we've got is your word for it."

"And my word's not good enough, is that what you're saying?" Athos asked coldly.

"I understand you spoke to the vicar about the possibility of your house being haunted?"

Athos blinked. "What's that got to - oh for God's sake, that is not what this is about. This isn't hooded figures and an odd smell, this is real, life and death. Well, death, specifically."

"Given your recent medical history, do you not think there's a possibility that you might have - well - imagined - " Porthos broke off, embarrassed by the look on Athos' face.

"Oh, you have done your homework," Athos said bitterly. "Pity you didn't spend some of that time investigating the actual crime here. So I'm just crazy, is that it?"

Porthos held up his hands placatingly. "I promise you I took this seriously right from the start. But look at it from my point of view – there’s no body, and nobody’s missing. Help me out here, eh?"

Athos composed himself with a visible effort. "Okay, look, I've not been well, I'm not denying that. But I didn't imagine this. It was real, as solid as you and me, I touched it with my own hands. I was not dreaming, I was not hallucinating, and no, I can't explain what happened to it, but I promise you Inspector, it was there."

Porthos could feel himself wavering in the face of Athos' calm certainty and groaned. "I suppose I could rustle up a SOCO team. Maybe a cadaver dog. I'm just not sure my budget will stretch to it."

Athos eyed him levelly. "How about your conscience?"

Porthos' second groan was louder. "Oh alright. But you'd better hope we find something."

"I should've thought it would be better to hope you don't," Athos observed as he showed Porthos out again. "If you find a body, it means someone's been murdered," he said when Porthos looked confused. "If you don't, it just means I'm nuts."

Porthos smiled despite himself. "Then if only for your sake, I kind've hope we do."

\--

The following morning Athos was mildly heartened to see a small group of people in protective overalls examining the area beyond his back fence. He’d had half a suspicion he was being fobbed off, but it appeared the inspector had kept his word after all.

Having spent most of his career accustomed to people hanging onto his every word, it had come as a rude shock to be so openly doubted on such a serious matter and his initial bewilderment had gradually been turning to anger. At first this had been directed at Porthos, but now that he finally seemed to be taking Athos seriously the anger settled on another outlet. Aramis. 

How dare he go telling tales behind his back, perhaps even laughing about Athos’ questions about his house? Weren’t vicars bound by some kind of confidentiality obligation? Athos had a sneaking suspicion this only applied to Catholic priests and the confessional, but he wasn’t in the mood to let facts get in the way of his righteous indignation.

Watching the team at the end of the garden put up a protective awning, Athos noted dismally it was raining again. What were the chances of any traces being left by now? Were they too late? 

He had a vague idea that the bowels let go when people were hung, so hopefully there would be some trace of bodily fluids. Thinking back, Athos didn’t remember smelling anything untoward, but then the whole experience was settling into a blur. He had to hang onto it, keep it sharp for his own sanity. 

Suspecting that looking up the physical effects of death by hanging could be a browser history that might come back to bite him in the current circumstances, Athos decided to occupy himself in other matters.

Still seething, he pulled on his coat and marched over to the church, intent on venting his displeasure with people who shared his business, particularly with policemen who could frankly do without distracting from the matter at hand.

Once again the church seemed empty at first, but a faint scuffling noise caught Athos’ ear and he remembered that before Aramis had been in the vestry. “Hello?” 

There was no reply, but the distant sounds were still audible so he marched down the aisle gathering his arguments around him like a suit of armour, and shoved open the little door in the wall.

“I want a word with - ” Athos tailed off. Reverend d’Herblay was indeed inside, but he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t unoccupied. Cassock hitched up to his thighs, he was in the middle of screwing a currently very startled looking young woman over an antique vestment chest.

Aramis looked round in alarm. “Jesus Christ!”

The expression on his face went a long way to making up for Athos’ sense of grievance, and Athos found himself struggling not to laugh. Instead, he cleared his throat and gave a disapproving look.

“Really Reverend, blaspheming in your own church? I expected better. I can see you’re occupied, I’ll come back later.” He nodded to the young woman still staring at him in horror. “Do excuse me.”

He walked out and back down the aisle, hearing the sounds of an argument breaking out behind him, apparently over whose responsibility it had been to lock the door. By the time he was back out in the fresh air, the suppressed smile had finally forced its way out onto his lips and for the first time in several months, Athos felt positively jaunty. 

He had no idea who the woman was, for all he knew it could have been the man’s own wife, but something about their horrified expressions suggested not. If Athos was any judge of anything, he’d guess it had been an illicit assignation. Not that he had any intention of exposing them, but he found his anger at the man had evaporated.

Lost in thought, Athos realised he’d walked past his house and was now in the centre of the village. It was still raining, and he looked around for options. The pub wasn’t open yet, and the hive of gossip that was the shop still unnerved him. A burgundy sign across the road caught his eye, and he had an idea.

The estate agents was empty apart from the woman behind the desk, and she looked up eagerly as Athos walked in. “Good Morning. Can I help you?” 

The name badge on her blouse read ‘Sylvie’ and Athos tried to remember if they’d ever spoken on the phone. He thought not, the only calls he’d made here himself had been taken by a man.

“Hello. My name’s Athos de la Fère, I bought Moonstone Cottage from you just before Christmas?”

“Oh yes?” Her expression slipped from ‘hope of a sale’ to ‘polite enquiry’. “Is there a problem we can help you with?”

“No. Not exactly.” Athos wondered how to phrase it in a fashion that wouldn’t backfire on him again if the industrious inspector decided on a bit of door-to-door. “I just wondered if you might be able to tell me anything about the place? Who lived there before, that sort of thing?”

“I’m not sure that’s the kind of information I should be giving out,” she said warily, then frowned. “Although, actually, as far as I can remember it was empty for nearly a year. And the people who had it before didn’t stay long, so I don’t know what I could tell you anyway.”

Far from being discouraged, the news that other people might have fled the house before him piqued Athos’ curiosity, and he sat down in the chair in front of her desk. 

“Anything like that you could tell me would be really interesting?” he said hopefully. “I don’t want names or anything like that, you wouldn’t have to tell me your clients’ personal information.”

Sylvie still looked sceptical. “I’m not a public archive you know.”

Athos glanced around at the otherwise empty office and raised an eyebrow. “I’m terribly sorry, you’re clearly rushed off your feet. I’ll leave you to your busy morning.”

She rolled her eyes at him and gave in. “Fine. Whatever.” She gave him a more considering look, and thawed slightly. “Want a coffee then?”

A few minutes later they were both sat behind her computer as she pulled up the sales records.

“Here we go. Yes, it had been for sale ten months when you bought it. They’d just dropped the price.” Sylvie gave him a sideways look and grinned. “You got a bargain.”

Athos opened his mouth to say actually his assistant had found it for him, then suspected that without further explanation it would make him sound like a prick, and just nodded. “I guess I did.”

“Before that – yes, we handled it for the people before as well – crikey, they were only there four months.” Sylvie slapped the desk as it triggered a memory. “Hang on, I do remember them, nice couple, one of them got a job offer they couldn’t refuse back in London. They moved back where they’d just come from I think.”

“Oh.” Not chased out by a potential haunting problem then Athos thought. Unless that had been an excuse they used to save face. “What about before them? 

Sylvie hit a few more keys, then looked surprised. “This is weird. That house has changed hands on average once a year for the last decade.” She looked at him. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, really. It’s nice,” Athos said non-committally. “What about earlier? Before the spate of moves?”

Sylvie delved further into the database, but shook her head. “Nothing. It’s possible earlier moves were handled by other agencies? People tend to go for the bigger ones if they want to sell in London.”

“You’re the only agent in the village though?” Athos asked, and she nodded. “So it’s likely people would come here. They certainly seemed to lately, given all those sales. Would you have earlier paper records maybe, before the computers came in?”

She gave him a look. “We might be rural round here, but even we’ve had computers longer than ten years, city-boy.”

“Right. Sorry.” Athos drained his coffee and gave her an apologetic smile. 

Sylvie drummed her fingers on the desk then pushed her chair back. “There is one other possibility. I’ve been searching on the name – it could have changed at some point? Do you know what number it is?”

Athos shook his head. “It’s the middle of a row of three, but I think they’ve all just got names. Actually I don’t even know what the road’s called,” he realised. The village was so small his postal address was just the cottage name, village and postcode, and he didn’t remember seeing a road sign.

“Gallows Lane,” Sylvie told him absently, frowning at the screen. It was just as well Athos had finished his coffee, because he promptly knocked the mug over. He scrabbled for it in embarrassment, mopping spots of coffee off the desk top.

Sylvie took in his shaken expression and laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“It’s not?” 

“Uh-uh. There’s no record of a gallows ever having been sited there. The name’s probably a corruption of the Old English ‘gal-holing’, or something like that.”

“Which isn’t just the Old English for gallows?” Athos checked, and she laughed.

“Hollow way. It’s Lane Lane, basically. The gal-prefix could’ve either signified bitter as in gall, or gay.” She smirked at him. “As in pleasant. Happy.”

“Let’s go for pleasant,” Athos said. “I’d rather not live on Bitter Lane.” 

“Happy Street it is then.” Sylvie got up and went over to a plan chest in the corner. “You’ve given me an idea though.” She pulled out a wide, shallow drawer and started looking through the contents.

“You seem very well informed on the history of the area,” Athos commented, leaning back in his chair to watch her.

“For someone with a less than Old English complexion you mean?”

Athos stuttered the beginnings of a mortified apology, and she winked at him. 

“I’m teasing. I did it at uni. Except there’s bugger all jobs for someone with a degree in that, so here I am sitting on my arse in an estate agent’s office. Still, it pays the rent. And - ” she pulled a large map triumphantly out of the second drawer - “gives me the chance to indulge my thing for local history.”

“What’s this?” Athos asked with interest, as she draped it over desk, computer and all.

“Old map of the area. Seventy years old this one – well, copy of. Should show your house.” They pored over it, heads together, until Sylvie pointed out a block marked into three properties. “Here. Wilfred’s Cottage.”

They sat back and looked at each other.

“So who was Wilfred?”

Sylvie shrugged. “How should I know? But it gives us something else to search on.” She uncovered the computer again and typed in the new address.

“Here we are. We have handled the sale before. Looks like the name changed about ten years ago, after it had been standing empty for two years. Maybe they figured Moonstone Cottage would sell better? Before that – another spate of it changing hands again quite often, but nothing earlier than nineteen ninety five.” She looked at him. “Does that help? I’m not really sure what you’re after.”

“Neither am I,” Athos admitted. “But it’s interesting. Nobody stays there long.”

“Well I hope you’re not thinking of selling up already?”

“If I do, I’ll be sure to let you have the commission,” Athos smiled. “But no, I don’t plan to.”

Sylvie studied him curiously. “Go on. I’ve indulged your curiosity. Now indulge mine. It obviously means something to you, that nobody stays there long. Why were you asking?”

“It’ll sound daft,” Athos admitted.

“I promise not to tell?”

Athos sighed. “I just – think it might be haunted.”

To his relief, she didn’t laugh. 

“Haunted? What, like – spooky noises and things flying off shelves?”

“It’s not a poltergeist. I don’t know, maybe I’m imagining things.” It hurt to say it, but then talking about ghosts in broad daylight did sound ridiculous.

“Maybe it’s Wilfred,” Sylvie suggested with a wicked grin. “Maybe he’s pissed off they changed the name of his house.”

“People were already selling up before it changed though,” Athos pointed out, and she conceded the point with a shrug. 

“I can’t help you there.” Sylvie looked thoughtful. “Tell you what though, I’ll ask Mr Langton when he comes back. He’s about four hundred years old himself. He’s bound to know of any old haunting stories in the village.”

“That would be very kind. You won’t mind if I drop in again then?”

She gave him an amused smile as he got up to leave. “Any time.”

\--

A couple of days later, in his goldfish-bowl of an office partitioned off from the rest of the CID suite by a bit of wobbly plexi-glass, Porthos leaned back in his chair and tiredly closed the report on his screen. Forensic results had been inconclusive, certainly nothing substantial enough to corroborate Athos’ claims of murder – but they had confirmed that a rope had recently been tied around one of the branches, and either tied very tightly – or had a substantial weight hanging from it.

Porthos sighed irritably. He had nothing to go on, and with nobody yet having been reported missing he had no excuse for wasting any more time on it. He could imagine what his superiors would say if he was asked to account for the time already spent. The modern force poured weighty scorn on anything as whimsical as a hunch, and if he was honest he’d have been hard pressed to say it was even that. 

All he had was the instinctive sense that Athos had been telling the truth, but he also had to acknowledge that just because the man believed he’d seen something didn’t necessarily make it true.

Porthos looked at his watch. D’Artagnan had been up to a morning conference in the City, and discovering the venue wasn’t far from Athos’ erstwhile offices, Porthos had made him take a quick detour on his way back.

Right on time the door at the far end of the outer office opened to admit his rather windblown DC, and a couple of minutes later d’Artagnan was sitting in front of him trying to surreptitiously untangle his hair.

“You went to his office?” Porthos checked. “What did you get?”

“Not much,” d’Artagnan said reluctantly. “Getting solicitors to talk isn’t exactly easy, they’re more suspicious of policemen than your average criminal. I didn’t get within a sniff of a partner, but they did let me talk to la Fère’s ex-assistant.” D’Artagnan glanced at his notebook. “Constance Bonacieux. She didn’t want to spill much either, but I think I managed to put her at her ease.” He smiled to himself at the memory, and Porthos privately wondered exactly how much of a tale she’d spun him. 

“So what did she have to say?”

“Nothing much that we didn’t already know,” d’Artagnan conceded. “He was one of the high-fliers at the firm, considered a shoo-in for partner, probably not that far off. Smart, hard-working – too hard-working by the sounds of it, she was pretty insistent that it was mostly that that lead to his breakdown, rather than any actual – you know. Mental issues. Apparently he’d suffered a bereavement as well. Wasn’t coping too well, and refused to seek help. Ended up in a clinic being treated for stress and exhaustion.”

“And that was all?” Porthos asked sharply.

“That was all she’d admit to. But I think on balance she was pretty open with me,” d’Artagnan mused complacently. “I think she liked me. We definitely had a rapport.”

\--

“Athos what’s going on? I had some dreadfully smug little policeman in the office asking questions about you.”

Athos stepped back to let Constance in the front door, then hastily back a bit further as she shook raindrops off her umbrella. She looked up at him awkwardly, conscious that she’d only left a rather garbled message on his phone to say she was coming down, and hadn’t actually been invited.

“Has something happened?” she asked carefully.

Athos gave her a look somewhere between amusement and indignation. “What, you think after a month in this place I snapped and bludgeoned the milkman to death, is that it?”

“No!” Constance protested, then gave a sheepish laugh and nudged him. “You haven’t have you?”

“Do people even have a milkman any more? Anyway, no. All rural tradesmen still present and correct, as far as I know. Except – ” he trailed off, his face falling. “Yes. Something has happened. Something – not good.”

Constance waited for him to elaborate, then when he just stood there staring at the floor she took off her coat, shouldered her bag again and clucked at him impatiently. “Right, come on, are you making me some tea or what, I’ve had a right mare driving down here. Come on.” She flapped at him until he started moving obediently in the direction of the kitchen.

In the end Constance made the tea herself, while Athos sat at the table and told her everything that had happened. When he’d finished, she looked at him soberly.

“The police are taking it seriously?” The questions she’d been asked had all been about Athos, his personal life and his history, and Constance had a nasty moment of wondering if they considered him a suspect.

Athos nodded hesitantly. “The man in charge – du Vallon – he’s being very professional about it all, but I can tell he thinks I was seeing things.”

“Athos – there was a time when you were seeing things,” Constance said carefully. “Hearing things. Things that weren’t there.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Athos demanded. “This – is different. It was real. I’m certain of it.” He looked down at the floor for a moment, then made himself look up again. “If it wasn’t – if it turns out the whole thing was in my head after all? Then I shouldn’t be out.” 

For a second he looked so full of self-doubt and fear that Constance reached out and took his hand.

“The doctors all said you were fine, right?” she said briskly.

After a second Athos nodded. “For a given value of ‘fine’, admittedly, but in principle yes.”

“Then you’re not seeing things. Which means it was real, and the police need to pull their fingers out and get on with finding him.”

Athos stared at her with hope in his eyes for the first time. “You believe me?”

“Well of course I do. Athos I’ve known you for years, you’re one of the smartest people I know. It’s time you started believing in yourself again.”

“Constance – you do know I’m not coming back, right?” Athos said gently.

Constance fussed with the hem of her jacket, not looking at him. “You might. It’s hardly been – give it some time. You might feel differently in a few months. Don’t burn your bridges, eh?”

“Look, I know there were – contributing factors, but ultimately it was the stress of the job that tipped me over the edge. Even if I could go back to working at that level, pick up the shreds of my old life – I’m not sure I want to.”

“What will you do instead then? You have to do something, you can’t just sit here and moulder. You’re a young man Athos, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

Athos smiled. “I’m older than you, stop sounding like my mother.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll become a provincial solicitor. They’re bound to have a vacancy somewhere round here.”

“What, dealing with nothing but wills and divorces and horse sales? You’d be bored to death within a week!”

“Maybe.” Athos conceded the point. “Something’ll come up.”

“Make sure you take it when it does, okay? I’m not giving up on you Athos, don’t you dare give up on yourself.”

Athos nodded, slowly realising that he was holding Constance’s hand, gripping it painfully tight. He made himself let go with an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Constance reached out and took his again. “Don’t be daft. And – don’t worry, okay? Things’ll work out. They always do.”

\--

As Constance was leaving an hour or so later, Athos caught the scent of woodsmoke as he followed her out into the hall and suddenly remembered what he’d wanted to ask her.

“Do you smell that?”

She looked at him blankly. “Smell what?”

Athos breathed in experimentally, and was satisfied he could still smell it. “I don’t want to prompt you. Come back here, do you get anything?”

Giving him a funny look she did as he asked, but shook her head. “Nothing. What can you smell?”

“Woodsmoke.”

Constance sniffed again and shook her head. “Sorry.” 

Athos shrugged, trying not to look downhearted. “Never mind. I keep smelling it, but there hasn’t been a fire in here for decades. It’s weird.”

“Probably seeped into the old beams,” Constance told him. “Funny though.”

“What is?”

“Well, when I went to use the loo earlier, I could have sworn – ”

“What?” Athos could almost have shaken her.

“No, it’s daft.”

“Constance, what? Did you smell something?” Or see something, he wanted to add, but that was going to cast doubt in her mind over everything else he’d said, so he kept quiet.

“Just for a second, I thought I did. Not woodsmoke though. It was more like – pipe smoke.”

“Pipe smoke?”

“Yeah. Like my granddad used to smoke. Must have been somebody outside I guess.” She smiled. “Unless you’ve taken up smoking a pipe since I last saw you?”

Athos smiled back, helping her into her coat. “Not guilty. Do you think I should? Could be a good look for me.”

Constance spluttered with laughter. “My advice? Stick to caffeine and alcohol.” 

_And sleeping pills,_ Athos thought, but stayed silent. She worried about him enough as it was.

\--

For want of something to do that would take his mind off things, when Constance had gone Athos took advantage of a break in the rain to wander down to the estate agents. Peering through the window between the property listings he could just make out Sylvie sitting at the desk looking bored, and was glad to find her alone.

“Afternoon.” 

“Hello!” She looked genuinely pleased to see him which went some way towards reassuring him that he wasn’t being a nuisance. “I’m glad you dropped in, I was thinking of calling on my way home, but I wasn’t sure if you’d mind.”

“Any time,” Athos smiled, taking the visitor’s chair. “Does that mean you’ve found something?”

She nodded. “I spoke to Mr Langton like I said. I was right, he’s worked here for decades. And he remembers old Wilfred. More to the point, he remembers what happened to him!”

Athos stared at her. “And what was that?” he asked tightly. 

Sylvie frowned at him, noting how pale he’d gone. “Are you sure you want to know? It’s a bit – grim.” Remembering belatedly that Athos lived there, and what she had to say might make him uncomfortable.

“Please. I have to know.”

“Okay. Well – it seems like his chimney had got blocked somehow, like, a massive bird’s nest or something. They found him dead in his bed. Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Athos’ head shot up again. “Accidental death? You’re sure? He didn’t hang himself?”

“What? No.” Sylvie looked taken aback by his response. She’d expected him to be weirded out by the idea someone had died in what was presumably now his own bedroom, but Athos looked almost relieved. 

“Anyway, Mr Langton was the surveyor and they discovered afterwards that the chimney was all cracked inside and stuff, so the next owners had a gas fire and a new flue installed. So there’s been no open fires in there for over twenty years,” she continued, remembering what Athos had said about the smell of woodsmoke. “But I guess it’s the kind of smell that gets into the fabric of the place?” 

“I guess,” Athos agreed. He wondered how he felt about someone having died in the house, but it would at least have been peaceful. And it meant what he’d seen on the edge of the wood was unrelated. He hadn’t realised until that moment how afraid he’d been that he’d seen something that wasn’t really there. _Cracked inside_ , he thought. _Like the chimney_. But no. There was no reason to suppose it hadn’t been real.

“Thank you.” Athos stood up and offered Sylvie his hand. “I mean it. For everything you’ve done. Thank you.”

She shook his hand, laughing at the unexpectedly formal gesture. “No problem. Any time. So – what will you do? Like – have the place exorcised or something?”

Athos imagined asking the vicar to carry out something like that, and winced. Besides, it wasn’t as if Wilfred – if it was Wilfred, and not just Athos’ imagination – had been a nuisance. 

“No,” he said slowly. “Nothing like that.” He smiled, as an idea occurred to him. “I might have the name of the place changed back though. I’m not really a Moonstone kind of person.”

\--

Walking home, Athos’ lighter mood lasted exactly as long as it took to recognise Inspector du Vallon’s car parked outside his house. Of the man himself there was no sign, and as Athos hadn’t passed him on the way up he continued along the road a little, until he spotted a figure in a long dark coat coming out of the churchyard.

Porthos spotted him at the same time, and raised a hand in greeting. “Ah, there you are. I called at the house but when there was no-one in, I thought you might’ve been up here.”

“I don’t really spend a lot of time in church, if I’m honest.” Athos looked hopefully at him. “Is there any news?”

Porthos sighed. “Athos – I’m sorry, but I’m closing the investigation.”

“What? You can’t!”

“I have to. I’ve already spent way more than I should have on something where I have exactly no evidence that it even happened.” 

“But I saw it! Does that count for nothing then?”

Porthos chewed his lip. He knew perfectly well that in almost any other circumstances he’d have already dismissed the entire account as being that of a crank, except he’d been swayed by Athos’ insistence and his own instinct that Athos was telling the truth. But it wasn’t enough.

“I’m sorry. I want you to know I’ve always taken your allegations seriously, but with no corroboration, no mispers, no body - ” Porthos held his arms out helplessly. “I’ve taken it as far as I can. I even had a dog team search the woods. The results came in an hour ago. Nothing. Nada. Not so much as a dead squirrel.”

Athos sagged a little. He couldn’t really blame the man, but neither could he just dismiss the feeling that somebody somewhere was getting away with murder. 

“The file’ll stay open,” Porthos offered. “If someone does turn up dead, or missing in the future – it may still help.”

“By which time whoever did it will be long gone,” Athos sighed. 

They’d been walking while they were talking, ambling along the path around the churchyard, and as they turned the corner something caught Athos’ eye that gave him a sudden idea. 

He stopped in his tracks, turning to Porthos with a look of inspiration. “Wait. The best place to hide a tree is in a forest, right?”

Porthos frowned, then followed the line of his gaze to a recent grave still sporting a mouldering wreath, and finally caught his meaning with a look of horror. 

“No. Oh, no no no, we are not digging up the grave of Louis Bourbon.”

“Think about it. Can you imagine a better place to hide a body?”

“Forget it. I’d never get permission from his wife for one thing.”

“Do you need it?”

“You’re new round here, aren’t you? Do you have any idea how influential that family is in these parts?” Porthos’ eye was caught by a flash of light as the sun caught the wind-shield of a passing sportscar and he gave a superstitious shudder as he recognised the driver. 

“That’s her in fact. Speak of the devil.”

Athos peered over the wall and got a look as the car turned the corner. The young woman at the wheel was oddly familiar, and it took him a second to place her.

“Her?” Athos looked back at Porthos in surprise. “But she’s shagging the vicar.”

“You what?” Porthos sounded scandalised, and Athos almost laughed.

“Seriously. I caught them at it in the vestry. Hey, if you needed some leverage...”

“I am not blackmailing the grieving widow!” Porthos folded his arms. “Athos, I’m sorry. I believe you mean well, and that you believe what you’re saying, but I have no grounds to call for an exhumation.”

“You mean you’ve come to the conclusion I’m nuts after all?”

“I mean, I believe there’s a good case you were mistaken in what you think you saw,” Porthos said gently.

“I understand.” Athos sounded numb. “Thank you for listening to me, at least.” 

Porthos watched him walk slowly away, feeling guiltily like he’d failed him somehow, but unable to offer anything more. He sighed, driving his cold hands deep into the pockets of his coat and looking around. While he was here there was someone else he should visit.

\--

“Athos!”

Almost at the lychgate, Athos turned to look back across the graveyard, taking a second to locate Porthos who wasn’t where he’d left him. Porthos waved him over, and Athos started walking back in surprise.

“What’s up?”

“When was Louis’ funeral?”

“December the fifteenth,” Athos said without hesitation, and Porthos raised an eyebrow.

“You’re very sure.”

“It was the day I moved in,” Athos explained. “I saw the funeral cars. It was – quite upsetting, actually,” he admitted quietly.

“Enough to disturb your peace of mind?” Porthos asked. “Unsettle you?”

Athos sighed. “Did you call me back over here just to tell me you think I’m crazy again?”

“No.” It was Porthos’ turn to sigh. “I didn’t know Louis well,” he said finally, after taking a second to muster his thoughts. “Met him at a couple of fundraisers, but only to speak to in passing. I didn’t attend his funeral. But I did come to hers.” He indicated the gravestone at their feet, and Athos read the details.

“Elizabeth Price. Ninety six. Not a bad age.” He looked up at Porthos and frowned, trying to guess the connection. “Relative?”

“Sort of. She fostered me. I lived here for five years when I was a kid.”

“Bit of a quiet place to grow up.”

“I liked it,” Porthos told him. “I’ve always been fond of the place. I guess that’s why I wanted to come back here to work.”

“I’m sorry, I’m still missing the connection.”

Porthos hesitated. “She was buried on the eighth.”

“The week before Louis?”

“Yeah.” Porthos looked unhappy. “They seed the graves, see. The grass doesn’t grow all that fast, this time of year, but it’s been quite mild. See – this plot’s almost grassed over.”

Athos nodded, then turned to look over at the bare turned earth of Louis’ grave.

“And Louis’ isn’t,” Porthos supplied, voicing Athos’ thoughts. “Almost as if...”

“The ground had been disturbed again recently?”

“Yeah.” Porthos was looking more unhappy by the second. “A week between them. Louis’ wouldn’t be quite as grassy as this one, but there shouldn’t be that much of a difference.”

“Reasonable grounds for suspicion?” Athos ventured.

“Don’t you think someone would’ve noticed if the grave was suddenly freshly dug over again?” 

Athos nodded at the dead flower arrangement propped against the gravestone. “Does it look like anyone’s been visiting regularly? From what I saw the widow’s getting her grief counselling in a more hands-on fashion direct from Aramis.”

Porthos groaned. “I should just walk away from this and pretend I never noticed anything odd.”

“You wouldn’t have called me back if you weren’t going to act on it,” Athos said.

“I wanted a second opinion.” Porthos made a face. “Do you realise the shitstorm this is going to cause, whether there’s a second corpse in there or not? Jesus, I wish I’d never met you.” Porthos walked off, already dialling d’Artagnan.

“D’Artagnan? You still in the office? Good. I hope you didn’t have plans, ‘cause I’m about to ruin your night.”

\--


	3. Chapter 3

From the window of the cottage Athos watched the sudden flood of vehicles converging on the churchyard with a prickle of apprehension. It was a relief to be finally taken seriously, but he was also conscious that it was no longer just his reputation he was staking on this. If he was wrong there would be no consequences for him other than embarrassment, but he suspected the fall-out for Porthos would be somewhat more serious. 

As darkness fell Athos was aware of floodlights being set up, although the activities within had been tented off from the road. A short while later a second influx of vehicles joined the first, several with silent strobe lights flashing and it was then that Athos knew. They’d found something.

\--

Aramis had been watching the fringes of the action from the shelter of the south porch, and when a large silhouetted figure stepped out of the glare of the arc lights and resolved into the grim looking Detective Inspector, his heart sank.

“You’ve found what you were looking for then?”

Porthos nodded, pursing his lips. “We have. A second occupant, without benefit of coffin.”

“Dear God. Do you know who it is?”

“No. That’s – sort of what I wanted to see you about. We’ve had no-one reported missing see. And you must know most of the people hereabouts, if only by sight.”

Aramis swallowed. “You want me to take a look?”

“Only if you don’t mind. I realise it’s a hell of an ask. But he’s not been down there long, and I reckon he’s still recognisable. You could save us a lot of time. But I’d like to make it clear you don’t have to.” Porthos hesitated. “It’s not pretty.”

Aramis nodded. “I understand. And yes, of course I’ll have a look. The poor soul’s been left in my churchyard, I owe it to him.”

“And you’re sure you never noticed any funny business out here in the last few days?” Porthos checked, as they walked back towards the enclosure.

“The lights on this side have been broken for months, I keep trying to get the money freed up to fix them,” Aramis explained apologetically. “But anyway I don’t live here, I’m in the next village over. I’ve got four parishes you see, I’ve barely got time to write my sermons never mind keep an eye on every inch of the grounds,” he added somewhat defensively. “That’s the churchwarden’s job, except he’s been laid up with arthritis since Christmas.”

To Aramis’ slight relief the corpse had been removed from the grave site and placed in a bodybag ready for transfer. At a nod from Porthos this was unzipped far enough for Aramis to get a look at the face inside. The wildlife had started to make inroads, but there was enough for him to realise who it was. He backed away hurriedly, breathing hard and praying, not for the victim but that he wouldn’t be sick on the crime scene.

“You know him?” Porthos had given Aramis a moment to collect himself, but was impatient to learn the identity.

Aramis nodded, leaning against the wall of the church for strength. “Philippe Feron. Local landowner.”

“When did you last see him?” Porthos beckoned d’Artagnan over to start taking notes. 

“Not for some time. Before Christmas, certainly. Actually, I didn’t know he was back.”

“Back? Back from where?”

“He’d gone abroad for a bit. Not sure where. Somewhere warmer.”

“He told you this?”

“Yes. Wait, no, it wasn’t him, it was his assistant. Came in with a donation for the carol service, said Feron couldn’t make it.” Aramis looked alarmed. “You don’t think - ?”

“I don’t think anything until I’ve got the evidence,” Porthos said. “But I think we’d better have a word with this guy.”

Having got Grimaud’s name and directions to the manor from Aramis, Porthos was disgusted to find that his car was blocked in by about six emergency vehicles.

“Come on, it’s not far. We’ll walk it,” he announced, and d’Artagnan groaned. “It’s good for you,” Porthos grinned hard-heartedly. “Bit of exercise, eh?” 

As they made their way down the hill Porthos caught sight of Athos watching them from his front window, and hesitated. “Hang on here a sec, will you?”

“You sure you should be telling him anything at this stage?” d’Artagnan objected, and Porthos blinked.

“What, you’ve gone from thinking he was making it up to thinking he did it now have you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“He’d hardly have been pushing us to look for the corpse if he’d put him there, would he?”

“It’s not unknown. Besides, he might have been having blackouts. He might not have known he’d done it.”

“Fancied his assistant didn’t you? Don’t expect she’d be thrilled to think you had her boss in the frame for it.”

D’Artagnan rolled his eyes. “I never said that either.”

“Didn’t have to.” Porthos shook his head, making his mind up. “No, the man was right. He deserves to know.”

He pushed open the gate, and Athos disappeared from the window, opening the front door before Porthos could ring the bell.

“You found something?” Athos asked breathlessly.

“Yes. A body.” 

Athos went suddenly dizzy and Porthos reached out to steady him as he stumbled. “You okay?”

“Yes. Sorry. Thank you.” Athos gave him a pale smile. “It seems wrong to be relieved, doesn’t it? That somebody’s dead, I mean.”

“If it wasn’t for you, we’d maybe never have known,” Porthos admitted. “I owe you an apology.”

Athos looked surprised, and his smile strengthened a little. “That’s alright. There were times when I wasn’t sure I believed myself. Do you know who it is yet?”

“We think it’s one Philippe Feron, landowner and member of the local gentry.”

Athos shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I ever met him – alive, anyway – but the name rings a bell for some reason.”

“According to the vicar he wasn’t even supposed to be in the country. We’re off to see his man now, see if he can shed some light on matters.”

“Oh.” Athos sounded like he’d made a connection and Porthos hesitated on the doorstep.

“You remember something?”

“He came into the church.”

“Feron?”

“No, his - I’m not sure what he was, butler, estate manager, something like that? Odd chap. Said his employer was off abroad for a while. But – that was ages ago. Long before I – before he – ”

“Ended up dangling at the bottom of the garden?” Porthos supplied. “Yeah, no, the pathologist reckons he’s only been dead a couple of days – initial impression, anyway. I’m hoping our Mr Grimaud can shed some light on what he was up to in between. Still, thanks, what you say backs up the Reverend’s version of events.”

“You surely don’t suspect the vicar?” Athos asked in horrified amusement.

“Body was found on his land.” Porthos winked at him. “Until proven innocent I suspect everybody mate.”

“Including me?”

Porthos kept his tone neutral. “Like I said. No offence.”

“I won’t leave town then.” Athos sounded amused again and Porthos found himself smiling at him.

“Wish all my suspects were that understanding.” 

“I know how it works,” Athos said. “And I know I didn’t kill him, so...”

“Faith in the law is a beautiful thing.” Porthos became conscious of d’Artagnan still waiting impatiently for him out in the road and cleared his throat. “I’ll be off then. Thanks again for – you know. Keeping on at me.”

“Thank you for believing me.” Athos frowned. “Why did you believe me?” Now the facts had been confirmed he could finally look at things objectively, and realised just how much of a leap of faith it had been for the man to take things this far simply of the muddled word of a stranger.

“Maybe you’ve just got an honest face?”

Athos smiled. “Bet you wouldn’t be saying that if I was still working as a solicitor.”

Porthos gave a bark of laughter. “True.” He headed back down the path with a wave of farewell, and Athos watched them both walk away into the night.

\--

As they made their way up the driveway to the old grey-stone manor house, Porthos and d’Artagnan argued quietly about the wisdom of having told Athos quite so many details about what had been found before any official statements had been made.

“You like him, don’t you?” d’Artagnan said slyly as they rang the bell, still annoyed about Porthos’ earlier jibe about him fancying Constance. 

“Implying what?” Porthos bristled. “That I’m not being professional? If it wasn’t for Athos we’d never have cottoned on to the fact there’d been a murder at all,” he pointed out. “In fact thanks to him we’ve even got the date and time of death. That’s going to narrow enquiries down nicely.”

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” The voice behind them was unexpected and they both spun round, trying not to look flustered. They’d have heard anyone approaching up the gravel drive but this man had come silently over the lawn, presumably from the back of the house. He was clutching a large iron pitchfork, which Porthos eyed with some misgivings.

“Lucien Grimaud?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Police. I’m Detective Inspector du Vallon, this is Detective Constable d’Artagnan. _Are_ you Mr Grimaud?”

There was a hesitation while dark, angry eyes took in their identification. “Yes. What do you want?”

“You work for Philippe Feron? When was the last time you saw him sir?”

Grimaud shrugged. “Before Christmas. He’s not here.”

“Can you tell us where he is?”

Another hesitation. “South of France.”

“We’re going to need you to be more specific sir,” d’Artagnan put in. “We’re going to need his contact details.”

“Don’t have them,” Grimaud told them sullenly. “He’s been moving around. What’s this about?”

“Could you put the pitchfork down please sir?” Porthos asked calmly. Grimaud looked at it, then back at him, and snorted derisively, before leaning it against the wall. “Thank you,” Porthos said, relaxing a little. “Could we perhaps go inside?”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

“A body has been recovered from the village this evening sir,” Porthos said carefully. “We have reason to believe it’s that of your employer.”

“Philippe?” Grimaud sounded surprised, but it was too dark to see his expression properly and Porthos wished he’d insisted they go inside first. “Can’t be. I’m telling you, he’s abroad. Look, alright, come in, I’ll see if I can find an address for him.”

Porthos and d’Artagnan exchanged a look, but followed him warily into the house. Grimaud showed them into a messy looking office and promptly went out again, ostensibly to look for the details they wanted. Porthos paced irritably, wondering with every minute that passed whether it had been a good idea to let the man out of their sight. He hadn’t taken to him at all, but on the other hand they had no reason to accuse him of anything yet.

D’Artagnan, who’d been sitting down staring idly out of the window, suddenly shot to his feet and grabbed Porthos’ arm. Porthos turned to follow the line of his gaze, just in time to see the shadowy figure of Grimaud disappearing down the drive with a bag over his shoulder.

“Fuck it!” Porthos gave chase, and with d’Artagnan hard on his heels they raced down the driveway after him. 

For a big man Porthos could move fast, but Grimaud had a good head start and as they neared the gates Porthos realised with a stab of annoyance that there was a car parked just inside the walls, and that Grimaud was making straight for it.

He redoubled his efforts, head down and legs pumping. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that he could no longer hear d’Artagnan’s footsteps behind him but turning to look would have lost him valuable moments.

He wasn’t going to make it. Grimaud had reached the car and had the door open, had thrown his bag inside and was about to follow – when someone came plunging out of the darkness, vaulted right over the roof of the car and landed on top of him, sending them both sprawling on the gravel.

“Gotcha,” d’Artagnan muttered breathlessly, dragging the winded Grimaud to his feet and shoving him back against the car.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” Porthos smirked. 

“I wanted to cut him off,” panted d’Artagnan. “Took a detour across the lawn.”

“Nice work.” He planted himself in front of Grimaud and folded his arms. “Where’d you think you’re off to then?” 

“I haven’t done anything!”

“No?” Porthos enquired politely, while d’Artagnan was cufffing him. “Why’d you run then?”

“This is police brutality! I’ll see you in court.”

“How about you exercise your right to remain silent, and shut the fuck up?” Porthos suggested. “D’Artagnan, call it in. Get a van up here. And I want that house searched.”

\--

It was early enough to still be dark outside, and Porthos stared at his reflection in the window of the incident room. He was listening to the reports that had come in overnight, and finding to his satisfaction that they had Grimaud what could happily be described as bang to rights. 

Grimaud’s fingerprints had come up a match for a delightful string of crimes under a variety of names, and the team assigned to search the manor had found evidence that someone had been held prisoner for a considerable time in one of the windowless attics. The latest report, received just a minute ago, also confirmed there was no record of anyone named Philippe Feron either having left or entered the country over the last few months.

Porthos still had questions. Why had the man been strung up outside Athos’ cottage? Why the interval between his disappearance and his eventual murder? He cracked his knuckles, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. Downstairs, d’Artagnan was escorting the prisoner to an interview room and hopefully very shortly they would have the whole picture.

He took the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait for the lift, and barrelled through the double doors at the bottom only to come to an abrupt halt at the scene in front of him. The door to the interview room was standing wide open, and inside two men – d’Artagnan and a uniform – were lying sprawled on the floor.

“What the fuck?” Porthos dashed inside, finding to his relief that both men were stirring and groaning. He helped d’Artagnan sit up, resisting the urge to shake him. “What happened?”

“Grimaud. He collapsed. But when we went to help – bam.”

“You mean he faked it, and you fell for it?” Porthos guessed in disgust. D’Artagnan nodded, shamefaced, and Porthos sighed. 

“Sorry sir.”

“What’s done is done. Let’s just catch the bastard, eh?”

“Probably halfway to Dover by now,” d’Artagnan said gloomily, eyeing the open fire escape door at the end of the passage. It was so early there weren’t many people about yet, which meant there was a good chance he’d made it off site.

Porthos shook his head as a worrying thought occurred to him. "How much did Grimaud overhear at the manor?" he mused. "Did he hear me say that Athos was the only witness to the death?"

“He did come up behind us,” d’Artagnan said uneasily. “He could have been listening for a while.”

Porthos had pulled out his phone, finding with relief that he’d stored Athos’ contact number the first time they’d interviewed him. His relief was short-lived though, as it rang out and went to answerphone.

"Athos, it's Porthos du Vallon, call me straight back when you get this - we picked up Grimaud for the murder but he’s done a runner and I think he might be coming for you - don't let anyone in until I get there."

He hung up and stared at d’Artagnan, trying to picture the inside of Athos’ house. "There was a phone in his hallway – landline, somebody find his landline number and keep trying it. I’m going out there!" Leaving d’Artagnan to see to the still-groaning duty officer, Porthos dashed out of the door.

\--

Athos struggled out of the chemical fug of sleep and stared blearily at the ceiling. The ringing of his phone had woken him, but not fast enough for him to process the fact, and he stumbled out to the bathroom without glancing at it.

Splashing cold water on his face made him feel a little more awake, and he made his way downstairs to put the kettle on.

A knock at the back door made him jump, not least because the only way into the garden was over the fence. Assuming it was one of the police, Athos opened the door and stepped back in alarm as a man barged his way in and slammed and locked the door behind him before snatching a carving knife off the draining board and brandishing it at him.

Responses still dulled by the pills he’d taken, Athos was slow to react and found himself staring at the point of a knife inches from his face.

"Who the hell are you?" He frowned. "Hang on, don't I know you?" Trying to remember where he'd seen the face before. "You were at the church...oh. Oh dear." Athos finally worked out who this must be, and Grimaud glared at him.

"You've caused me a lot of trouble, you have. If it wasn’t for your meddling I’d be in financial clover right now, and instead the bloody filth are all over me. So now you're going to pay for it. Get away from the window. I said move!"

Athos shuffled into the hall, glowering. "It's rude to threaten a man with his own knife."

"Shut up." 

The telephone on the hall table suddenly shrilled and they both jumped. Athos stared at it in surprise, not least because he had no idea what his own number was, and certainly hadn't given it to anyone.

"Upstairs. And no sudden movements," Grimaud ordered. “Or I’ll slit you where you stand.”

“Hardly an incentive, given I assume you intend to anyway,” Athos muttered, but he did as he was told, figuring the longer he could keep Grimaud talking the better chance he had of finding a way out of this. On a good day he’d have taken his chances, but Grimaud looked sharp and strong and angry, and Athos felt like he was moving in a cloud of cotton wool.

He cursed himself for having given in to the soft lure of the pills the night before, but after the shocks of the day he’d known he wouldn’t sleep without them. And to be fair, he thought, he hadn’t anticipated being threatened by an armed intruder first thing the following morning.

Downstairs the phone started ringing again and Athos wondered distantly who it was. Double-glazing, probably.

By now he was backed into a corner of his bedroom, and Grimaud was looking around for something to tie him up with.

“You won’t get away with this you know,” Athos told him. “You already know the police are after you. You’re just making it worse.”

“They can’t prove anything,” Grimaud snapped back. “The old man topped himself.”

“He could never have got up there on his own.”

“Well they’ve only got your word for that, haven’t they?” sneered Grimaud. “And very shortly they won’t have that, either. Two suicides in such a short space of time, terrible tragedy for a village like this. But rumour has it you’re off your rocker anyway, so no-one’ll be that surprised.”

“You’re insane.” Athos stared at him. “Was Feron supposed to have buried himself as well then?”

“Oh, they might get me for that,” Grimaud conceded. “But what kind of chicken-shit sentence is that going to carry? Burying a man who was already dead, on holy ground. Who cares? They can’t prove I killed him.”

At that moment Athos’ mobile started ringing again and Grimaud gritted his teeth. “You’re in fucking demand this morning aren’t you?” But in glancing down at the phone he spotted something else on the bedside table that made him smile unpleasantly.

"Oh, what's this? Sleeping pills? Now that’s providence. You were going to have a little accident in the bath," Grimaud told him, "but this is much better."

He threw the pill bottle to Athos, who caught it automatically. 

"Take them. All of them."

"No!"

"The alternative is me cutting your wrists. Your choice, but I'd pick the soft and cosy death, if I were you." Grimaud backed up to block the exit, still wielding the knife comfortably, like he knew how to use it.

"Do it!" 

Athos opened the bottle with shaking hands, and moved slowly to pick up the glass of water from the table.

"That's it. Be a good little suicide. Not like there’s anyone to miss you, from what I’ve heard." 

Somewhere below the doorbell went, followed by a furious and impatient banging on the front door. 

Grimaud looked away, just for a second, and when he looked back Athos was already moving. The glass of water hit Grimaud in the face, and in the second of blinking, spluttering confusion that it bought, Athos ripped up the bedside table and hit him with it. 

\--

Downstairs, getting no answer to his hammering and more worried by the second, Porthos knocked out a pane in the door and let himself in. He looked around wildly, was listening for any indication where they might be when a movement above eye level made him look up.

A dazed looking Athos was stumbling down the stairs towards him, his dressing gown liberally spattered with blood. Porthos stared at him in horror.

"Athos! Oh God – don't move, I'll get an ambulance."

Athos frowned. "What?” He looked down. “Oh, no. Don't worry. It's not mine."

"Oh. Right." Porthos rapidly re-evaluated a few things, not least the fact that Athos was holding a large knife. "I'll just – take that, shall I?"

To his relief Athos handed over the knife without objection. This close, Porthos could see he was shaking, and resisted the instinctive urge to put an arm around him. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened here.

“Grimaud?”

“Upstairs.” Athos sank down to sit on the bottom step. “He tried to kill me.”

Porthos looked warily at the bloodstains soaking into his robe. "Let me guess – he fell on his own knife?"

"As it happens." Athos looked up and gave a faint but unexpected smile, guessing Porthos' thoughts from his expression. "Don't worry. He'll live."

\--

When the ambulance had come and gone, taking the re-arrested Grimaud and a grudge-holding d’Artagnan with it, Porthos stayed behind to take Athos’ statement.

Afterwards they drank tea outside in the spring sunshine, and Porthos formally apologised for letting Grimaud escape from custody in the first place. Athos waved it away.

"Thank you for coming to rescue me," he said sincerely.

"Well.” Porthos shrugged. “Looks like you had it all under control."

“You gave me the distraction I needed.” Athos half-smiled. “It's funny. All those weeks of counselling, of people talking to me in maddeningly soft and reasonable voices – and you know what's been the most therapeutic thing of all? Getting to hit someone who deserved it really hard in the face."

Porthos snorted with laughter. "Don't tell me things like that, I'm a police officer."

Athos ducked his head, still smiling. “Am I in trouble though?” he asked. He had, technically, been responsible for Grimaud sustaining a deep gash to his arm and a concussion, and he knew lawyers who could have made a lot of that. Had been one of them, in fact.

“Not if I have anything to do with it. I reckon you’ve been through enough.” Porthos looked around, wrinkling his face up in pleasure at the first really warm sunshine of the year and the scent of the pines. “It’s nice here. Will you stay?”

Athos considered. “I think so. For now, anyway.” 

“Good.” They studied at each other for a second, assessingly. Athos looked away first, clearing his throat. 

“Will you let me know how it goes? With Grimaud?” 

“Yeah, course. Um. We may need you to testify?”

“Yes.” Athos nodded, wondering distantly how he would feel being back in a courtroom, particularly at the sharp end of things. But if Grimaud confessed maybe he wouldn’t have to.

“Will you be alright with that?” 

“Have to be, won’t I?” Athos gave him a brisk smile, and carried the empty mugs back into the kitchen. Porthos followed him, leaning against the counter. 

“Tell me to piss off if you like, but what happened to you? I know you had a breakdown in a courtroom, but not really any of the detail behind it. I’m not prying,” Porthos added hastily. “And this isn’t an official question, don’t feel you have to answer me. But I don’t want to end up putting you in a situation that’s maybe going to be bad for you.”

Athos mulled this over for a while, making them both fresh mugs of tea while he considered whether to lay himself open. He was conscious that however unofficial the line of questioning, Porthos might only be interested in making sure he wouldn’t come across as an unreliable witness under cross-examination. But there was something about the man that he trusted, and he made up his mind.

“It was mostly just over-work. Burn out. But also – my parents had just died within a year of each other, which was hard enough, but then my fiancée and my brother were both killed as well. Two unrelated accidents, within the space of two months. I tried to keep going, threw myself into my work more than ever, tried to ignore the strain of it, the grief, the sudden knowledge I was all alone.”

Porthos knew it was the least important thing about what Athos was telling him but even so he couldn’t stop himself saying it. “You were engaged? To a woman?”

“Yes.” Athos gave Porthos a sideways look, considering him. 

“Right.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No! No, course not. Why would it be?” 

“You just sounded rather surprised.”

Porthos looked awkward. “I suppose I’d just got the impression – never mind.”

“What impression?”

“Forget it.” Athos just stared at him enquiringly, and Porthos groaned. “I just – thought you were gay. I don’t know why. Sorry. Teach me not to make assumptions.”

“Why should you be sorry?” Athos asked, then took pity on Porthos’ mortified expression. “For the record, I’m bisexual. So you’re not that far out.”

“Really?”

“What, it wasn’t in your file on me?” Athos asked, just a little acidly. 

“Your confidence in our intelligence gathering abilities is flattering,” Porthos grinned. “I think it just mentioned a previous partner. Deceased,” he added, sobering abruptly.

“If she’d stayed dead, maybe everything would have been fine,” Athos said, then half-laughed at Porthos’ expression. “No, she was dead. Except – I started seeing her. Freaked me the fuck out, I thought I was being haunted until I realised no one else could see her. Unfortunately knowing she was a nothing but a psychosis didn’t stop her showing up. She’d shout at me. Accuse me of things. Accuse me of killing her.”

“Why?”

“We’d argued, that day. She left in a temper. Ten minutes later a lorry smashed into her car, brake failure. The enquiry ruled she hadn’t been in the wrong, but I kept thinking – was it my fault? Was she distracted?” Athos sighed. “She clearly thought so.”

“Athos - ”

“I know, I know. It just meant I thought so. It’s hard to rationalise things when the lady in question is glaring at you from across the kitchen table. Anyway. One day she showed up in court. Started interrupting me, contradicting things was saying. I snapped, yelled back at her.” Athos looked embarrassed. “Turns out if you shout at somebody who isn’t there in the middle of a crown court, the nice men in white coats come and take you away.”

“You needed help,” Porthos said softly.

“Yes. And I got it, in the form of heavy sedation. Probably a month or two asleep was just what I needed. Except - ”

“It’s left you with a dependency?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is it?” Athos looked away, ashamed of himself. 

“Yes.” Porthos came over, laid a hand over Athos’ where it rested on the counter. Athos looked up at him in surprise and for a second they just held each other’s gaze. 

This time, it was Porthos who looked away first. “I should go.” Realising he’d been on the verge of asking Athos out, and knowing guiltily there was no way that could happen in the middle of an active case. Maybe later, but – not now. Not yet.

Athos made no move to stop him leaving, but accompanied him to the door amenably enough.

“Will I see you again?”

Porthos smiled. “Count on it.”

\--

Three nights later there was a ring at Athos’ front door and he opened it to find Porthos standing there looking jubilant. 

“Good news – Grimaud’s confessed. You won’t have to testify,” Porthos announced before Athos could get a word out.

“Oh thank God. Will you come in?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Porthos followed him down to the kitchen, thinking how warm and cosy it looked. He had a cold empty flat to go home to, and wasn’t remotely averse to spending a bit of time in Athos’ company first.

“I was about to eat, will you join me inspector?” Athos invited.

“Call me Porthos, I’m off duty. And – if there’s enough, I wouldn’t say no.” His stomach was rumbling at the smell, and Porthos realised he’d had nothing since a twix with his morning coffee. 

“There’s plenty. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?”

“Just water’s fine, thanks. Smells good.”

“I’d like to pretend I’d made it, but it’s best not to lie to the police I find,” Athos smiled. “Supermarket’s finest, I’m afraid.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” declared Porthos. “If it wasn’t for ready meals I’d have starved years ago.”

“I keep thinking I should learn how to cook properly. Now that I’ve got so much time on my hands.”

“Could be a new career path,” Porthos grinned.

“Maybe reserve judgement until you’ve established if I can even heat something up adequately,” Athos said with a breathy laugh. He was hiding behind a glass of wine, his face flushed from the heat of the oven and Porthos thought he looked pretty edible himself.

“So – Grimaud confessed?” Athos prompted, once they were both sitting at the table with steaming platefuls and Porthos was already digging in.

“Yeah. Finally.” Porthos had been relieved, not just that it meant avoiding a trial, but that he wouldn’t be called on to justify some of his wilder leaps of faith. “We did a bit more digging into his background. Turns out over the last ten years he’s worked for three elderly members of the aristocracy, and inherited from all of them.”

“Were any of their deaths suspicious?” Athos asked, and Porthos shrugged.

“Trust me, we’ll be looking a bit more closely at them now. Anyway, it seems Feron had been dangling the promise of making Grimaud his heir for some time without actually making good on it. Grimaud got fed up waiting and locked him up until he agreed to sign the papers then topped him once he had. Told everyone he’d gone away so nobody would worry.”

“It’s sad,” mused Athos. “That he didn’t have any friends to notice anything wrong.” 

“Seems to have been a bit of a recluse.” Porthos winked at him. “Anyway, he had you. Turns out Grimaud didn’t know you were here, the cottage had been empty for months. He’d thought it was a secluded spot. You can cut through the woods from the back of the manor, it’s not far as the crow flies.”

“Was he trying to make it look like suicide?” Athos asked, remembering Grimaud’s attempt on him with a shudder. 

“His original plan was to bury the body in the woods. Tell everyone Feron had died and been buried overseas, then quietly produce the will. Except then you turned up and gave him quite the shock. He panicked, had to find somewhere else to stick the body. Then just in case it was discovered he dreamed up a version where Feron had miserably topped himself and he was just trying to save him the shame of it. He tried that on us for a while, but being presented with the evidence of his past employment finally cracked him.”

Athos barely heard the second part of this, transfixed with horror by something Porthos had said.

“Do you mean he saw me? That morning? He was out there watching me?”

“Yep.” Porthos nodded. “You said it was misty, right? Lucky for you as it turns out. If you’d seen him, who knows what he’d have done. As it was, he must have been up there cutting him down while you were in here waiting for us. It took balls, I’ll give him that. No wonder you were confused when it had gone.”

“I thought I was going mad,” Athos said quietly and pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. “No, I thought I was still mad.”

Porthos reached over and patted his hand. “But you weren’t. And you aren’t. And thanks to you Feron’s got a proper burial and Grimaud’s in the clink. By the way, who’s Wilfred?”

“What?” Athos looked at him with startled eyes, and Porthos smiled.

“On your gate. Sign says Wilfred’s Cottage. Never used to.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Trained observer, me.”

Athos laughed in sudden relief. “Previous owner,” he explained. “Long story.”

Porthos grinned. “I’m in no rush.”

\--

“You sure I can’t tempt you to a glass of wine?” Athos offered, topping up his own glass. To his slight surprise he’d found himself relating the whole story of Wilfred’s death and his own ghostly impressions, and had been relieved when Porthos had neither mocked him for it nor looked askance at him. In fact they’d got on surprisingly well, and an hour had gone by barely noticed.

“Better not. I’m driving.” 

“You could stay the night?”

Porthos laughed out loud. “Are you propositioning me?”

“I have a spare room, if you’d like to pretend I wasn’t.”

“I’m flattered.”

“But – not interested.” Athos carefully studied the contents of his glass, rather than catch Porthos’ eye.

“I didn’t say that. I just – I guess I prefer to get to know someone a bit better before jumping into bed with them. Call me old fashioned if you like.”

“It’s not unreasonable.” Athos was already regretting his spur of the moment impulse with a certain amount of embarrassment. 

“So – you wouldn’t be against me calling round again some time?” Porthos prompted.

“I would like that very much.” Athos smiled at him, but after a second it faded a little at the edges, and Porthos frowned. 

“What’s wrong?”

Athos sighed. “I’m just not sure I’d be the easiest person to date right now, to be honest. With everything I’ve got going on – I just wonder if I’m fooling myself.”

“Well it’s not exactly a bundle of laughs dating a copper, either,” Porthos admitted with a wry smile. “It’s ninety percent last-minute cancellations and waking up to an empty bed ‘cause I’ve been called out at three in the morning. People tend not to put up with me for very long.” He looked over at Athos hopefully. “Maybe we could manage to be patient with each other?” he ventured.

“Do you mean that?”

Porthos nodded, and when Athos nodded back cautious agreement he reached across the table to take Athos’ hand into his. “What do you say we give it a shot?”

“You’re sure?” Absently stroking his thumb across Porthos’ knuckles even as he double-checked, and Porthos smiled helplessly at him. 

“Very.”

Athos was silent for a while, and Porthos wondered what he was thinking. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t quite what had Porthos expected.

“Did you dig up someone’s grave just because you fancied me?”

Porthos gave an explosive laugh, then spluttered a lot. “No! No way. Not – not entirely. It might have helped with the convincing. A bit. Maybe.”

Athos hid a smile. “Good thing I was right then really.”

“Bloody right. I could have been out of a job right now. I’m fairly sure they’ll never let me join the Masons as it is.”

“Did you want to?”

Porthos grinned. “Nah. No loss there.” 

They talked for a while longer, somehow never quite letting go of each other’s hand, and when Porthos got up to go it was with a promise to come back the following night.

“Goodnight, Athos.” On the doorstep Porthos laid a hand on his shoulder, and after a second’s hesitation, kissed Athos on the cheek. Athos turned his face to return the kiss, just a brush of lips against Porthos’ warm skin.

“Goodnight.”

Porthos was a couple of steps down the path when he stopped and looked back. Athos was still standing in the doorway, looking at him quizzically. 

“Forget something?”

“Actually...yeah.” Acting on impulse, Porthos walked back to him and sliding an arm round his waist kissed Athos firmly on the mouth. Surprised, Athos responded, his fingers curling into the wool of Porthos’ sweater and Porthos kissed him again, softly intent. 

Above them the bulb in the outside light suddenly blew, and they both ducked instinctively.

“I don’t think Wilfred approves,” Athos remarked, and Porthos snorted.

“Fuck Wilfred.” He kissed Athos again lightly, and turned to go.

“I don’t think he’d approve of that either,” Athos called after him and Porthos laughed, looking back from the gate to wave before getting into his car. 

Athos watched him drive off, before shivering slightly in the cold night air and turning to go back indoors. Home, he thought. It hadn’t really felt like a home up to now – at least, not his. But tonight it felt subtly different, and Athos wondered what had changed. Him, perhaps. He’d been afraid he was falling apart, that his breakdown had been the start of a general unravelling that he was powerless to stop. Porthos had shown him – _proved_ to him – that that wasn’t the case. 

Washing up the supper things, Athos stared out the back window at the dark line of trees beyond the garden. He’d been afraid he’d feel spooked or uneasy left alone here, but somehow the knowledge that the body hanging there had been real was more comforting than the alternative.

Athos pulled the curtain across and turned his back on it. Life was for the living, and tomorrow he intended to start.

\--


End file.
